Lose yourself in our planet’s beauty with the winners of Wiki Loves Earth

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A lonely monastery. The sun rising over the desert. A walk through a national park. These are just a few of the spectacular sights captured in the winners of the international Wiki Loves Earth photography competition, announced today.

Coming in first place, seen at top, is a shot of the famed columnar basalt of Cape Stolbchaty, located in Russia’s Kuril Islands.[1] Ekaterina Vasyagina’s photo was praised by one competition judge for its “brilliant composition and depth,” with another saying that it simply “makes you want to breathe.”

Wiki Loves Earth focuses on natural heritage in protected areas—unique and special places like nature reserves, landscape conservation areas, national parks, and more. It asks photographers to contribute their work to Wikimedia Commons, a media repository that holds many of the photos used on Wikipedia and the Wikimedia ecosystem. All of the content on Commons is freely licensed, meaning that it can be used by anyone, for any purpose, with only a few restrictions.[2]

Organized since 2014, Wiki Loves Earth’s fifth annual contest saw 7659 different users uploading photos, of which 83% were new accounts participating for the first time. These people contributed nearly 90,000 photo uploads, captured in at least 32 countries. Four thousand of these fall under Wiki Loves Earth’s partnership with UNESCO, which encourages photographers to capture life in biosphere reserves—internationally designated protected areas that encourage sustainable development.

All of the entries were judged by national juries; winners there were forwarded to the international jury, composed of members from seven different nations.

Third place: A person walking through Satchari National Park, located in far eastern Bangladesh. Satchari means “seven streams.” From the jury: “the light is magic.” Photo by Abdul Momin, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Fourth place: Hoggar National Park, Assekrem, Tamanrasset, Algeria. One jury member called out the “lovely use of multiple opposing diagonals,” while another commended the photographer’s balance between hot and cold. Photo by AMRI MOHAMMED, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Footnote

1. The islands’ status is disputed by Japan.

2. Please make sure to follow each image’s copyright tag. All of the images above, for instance, are available under a Creative Commons CC BY-SA license, meaning that you are free to share them for any reason so long as you give credit to the photographer and release any derivative images under the same copyright license.

Read further in the pursuit of knowledge

Nearly 132,000 images, all freely licensed, have been added to Wikimedia Commons in the fourth annual Wiki Loves Earth. The photographic contest focuses on protected areas, unique places of natural heritage, to document them for future generations.

Late last month, educators, tech professionals, and policy makers came together in Paris for Mobile Learning Week, an annual four-day conference that this year was devoted to the problem of "education in emergencies."

Wiki Loves Earth, a photo competition where participants picture protected areas and upload their photos to Wikimedia Commons, was held internationally for the second time in 2015 and gathered 26 countries. The contest is over, and we are now able to present the international winners.

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